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Russell Wilson was the most efficient passer in
college football last season. You can do that on Saturdays when you stand
5-10.

It’s more difficult to be that efficient at that size on Sundays, as Wilson
discovered in his NFL debut Sunday. He could have even a rougher time in his
home debut this Sunday when the Cowboys come calling.

Wilson completed almost 73 percent of his passes at Wisconsin last season
with 33 touchdowns and only four interceptions. But he completed only 52.9
percent of his passes in his NFL debut with the Seattle Seahawks for a modest
153 yards with a touchdown and an interception in a 20-16 loss to Arizona.

This despite a game plan of short drops and quick passes designed to limit
his exposure to the pass rush. Counting penalty plays, Wilson put the ball in
the air 41 times — but only 11 of his passes carried longer than 10 yards and
six of those came on the game’s final drive when the Seahawks needed chunks of
yardage to stage a rally.

Twenty-three of Wilson’s passes were throws of 10 yards or less and another
four were behind the line of scrimmage. Three more were throwaways under duress.
He was sacked three times, lost a fumble and was penalized three times for delay
of game and grounding. He also had two of his passes rejected by Arizona pass
rushers.

That was against a pedestrian defense. Wilson has yet to face a pass rusher
the caliber of DeMarcus Ware, a ballhawking linebacker the caliber of Sean Lee
or a physical cornerback combination the caliber of Brandon Carr and Morris
Claiborne.

To throw quick passes, your receivers must get off the line and into their
routes at the snap. But the Rob Ryan defense is designed to hold up the
receivers at the line, knock them off their routes and slow the offense.

Compounding Seattle’s problem this week is that Wilson is inaccurate with the
deep ball. He attempted three passes of 40-plus yards against Arizona and all
were badly overthrown. One resulted in an Adrian Wilson interception.

If the deep ball isn’t a threat, the Cowboys can crowd the box with eight and
nine defenders and squeeze all the daylight out of the passing lanes for Wilson.
No one said being a rookie quarterback was going to be easy in this league.